Create v. Generate, 2025.

Generative Pre-Trained Transformer has been my biggest source of existential crisis since the release of its third generation back in early 2023,  which could generate human-like messages. Yet, paradoxically, it's the second-most-used technology in my life (nothing beats the gram). I use it to help with work and silly questions, and while I'm slightly embarrassed to say it, I have even used it as my unpaid therapist on more than one occasion. It would not be wrong to call it one of the greatest inventions by human beings, if not the greatest. 

As a writer, despite AI being able to write impressive stories and create pretty pictures for a long time, I believe that AI's fatal flaw is that it doesn't have a soul. 

This flaw makes it impossible for AI to generate any art that connects to human beings on a level deeper than mere aesthetics. 

This brings me to the subject I need to rant about today: the make-my-pictures Ghibli trend. 

                                                  

I have been an admirer and fan of Studio Ghibli for many years. Ghibli movies have been the sunrise to my darkest night so many times. 

The Ghibli aesthetic wave on social media arose because GPT-4o can use your photos and generate a rendition in Miyazaki sensei's iconic Ghibli style with just one prompt: make it like Ghibli. I hate this trend like K-Dot hates drake. 

However, I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't look dope af, and I certainly do understand why it is trending. Heck, I've even used it, and it looked gorgeous. 

The Ghibli art style is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also has a certain magic about it, a wholesomeness that cannot be described but only experienced. Now, my problem isn't people discovering the style and doing what they like with it. My problem is the fact that Miyazaki sensei's works, which he poured his blood, sweat and soul into, are being juiced for shareholder profit without him being properly compensated for it. 

                             

This scene from the wind rises took 15 months to create (check it out on Youtube), with hundreds of frames, each drawn by hand and I'm pretty sure that every single one of those frames were used to train GPT-4o (this is just conjecture, OpenAI does not tell us what data they train GPT on.) I know I sound like a broken record but not a penny was paid to the artist because existing copyright law is shit. 

(Just DM me if you want to know more about why they weren't paid, IG:thepranavkrishnan)

Right now, OpenAI might be burning money and melting GPUs to generate these images for everybody. But the long-term impact of AI art isn’t just about pretty pictures. It’s about the death of creative work itself.

The death of creative work and the rise of generative art. 

We have seen a massive shift in the way entertainment is created in the past few years; the focus is on pumping out as much content as possible and not a single fuck is given about the quality of the output, for the most part. 

Why? Money. 

It is easier for production houses to create lots of low-quality, easy to produce content and then publish it to make money. Like how Netflix produces a shit ton of low quality content that not many people watch, but are cheap to produce and roll out and therefore, end up making Netflix money. 

For every 'Adolescence', there exists a hundred Nadaaniyans.

Another example is companies like Disney that try to capitalize on exiting IP such as The Lion King and Snow White and remake them hoping to churn quick profits without actually putting in the effort required to create classics like they used to but instead trying to capitalize on people's nostalgia to make as much money as possible. 

Bollywood, on the other hand, has a tendency to remix old music instead of creating new pieces. 

Even OpenAI, the company behind GPT-4o, which started as a not-for-profit organization, is transitioning towards a for-profit model. 

In a capitalistic society, profit triumphs over creative content. 

That is precisely why AI-generated art and video are threatening. 

If AI can create infinite cheap copies of entertainment that companies know will make them money, why would they spend money on creating originals?

The need for real art will disappear. Artists will end up starving to death. 

There may be some people who argue that if AI can draw better than humans and with better efficiency than us, why shouldn't AI art become the norm?

Well, because it generates, not creates. Built off of decades worth of effort put in by artists who don't see a single dollar from it. 

More importantly, art creates culture.

Art is the medium of resistance. 

If all art is generated by AI, the censorship that the elite will be able to put on art will create a society where Freedom of speech will become the fantasy that generative AI once was. 

But, Pranav, it's impossible to prevent! Some people claim.

IT IS PREVENTABLE. 

If we decide to not let art and culture become a commodity that can be bought.

If we decide that expression cannot be automated. 

If we decide that the soul of human expression isn't worth butchering for likes and a few moments of dopamine hit, we can stop it. 

Because if nobody wants it, the tech isn't worth spending billions on. 

Become aware of the impact of the little things you do. Don't let trends and the fear of missing out artificially created by social media companies get to you, or another aesthetic like Ghibli will never be created. Everything will become recreation. The end of creativity may not be far waway

You might think that I'm not an artist; I'm just having fun. It won't affect me.

OH YES, IT WILL.

First they'll take away the art, then they'll be taking away stories and they won't stop till every thing that makes us human according to Mr. Keating will be generated by machines and we will be left building power plants necessary to keep the machines alive. 

I still strongly believe that AI art can never have a soul. 

The Ghibli trend was only successful because we got to see our favourite moments in a magical aesthetic created by great artists. Our pictures, our memories and our lives gave the generated images soul. The generated images didn't resonate with us; human experiences did. 

To companies, though, the soul doesn't matter, only money does. Anything will be promoted as long as it paints their bank accounts green. 

To keep the human soul alive, we must understand the true depth behind art. 

Only by collectively choosing to keep art alive can we ensure that our voices are heard. 

Because if the elite choose what to generate and what to propagate, the things we want to say, the things we want to draw and the things we want to explore will be buried so deep that we may never be able to recover them.

So, I beg you, please don't kill art. Keep our souls alive. 

With love,

Pranav.